Kings Place
Sound Unwrapped Launch, Kings Place review - ravishing combination of ancient and modernSaturday, 21 January 2023
The distinctive silvery tones of the viola da gamba were eclipsed in the 18th century as music moved from intimate settings to the brasher acoustic demands of the concert hall. Yet for Liam Byrne, discovering the viola da gamba at Indiana University... Read more... |
First Person: Kings Place Artistic and Executive Director Helen Wallace on a year of 'Sound Unwrapped'Saturday, 21 January 2023
2023 is surely the year the performing arts reach peak "immersive", a word endangered by its own ubiquity. From Punchdrunk’s Burnt City to Danny Boyle’s The Matrix we are promised a swallowing-up by art. Kings Cross is the location for two visual... Read more... |
Chasing the Night, Echo Vocal Ensemble and Friends, Latto, Kings Place review - midwinter songs from around the worldFriday, 16 December 2022
At this of year there is always a good range of seasonal choral concerts on offer in London – and an audience for them all, weather and strikes permitting. But while I enjoy a canter through Carols for Choirs as much as anyone, I am perhaps more... Read more... |
Mulroy, Aurora Orchestra, Kings Place review - old and new worlds of songTuesday, 25 October 2022
You invariably come away from an Aurora Orchestra concert with ears refreshed and mind revived. As a storm swept across London on Sunday, the audience at Kings Place enjoyed their own cleansing wind in the form of this genre-spanning gig in the “... Read more... |
Sounds of Estonia, Kings Place review - one of the world's great choirs on spellbinding formMonday, 28 March 2022
The history of Estonia has been described as “a story set to song”. The Estonian activist Heinz Valk called singing “our nation’s most glorious form of self-expression.” There are, of course, other nations where singing is seen as an expression of... Read more... |
Two-Piano Gala, Kings Place review - five pianists, two pianos, too many piecesMonday, 11 October 2021
I’ve always loved the sound of two-piano music: the amazing range of available textures, the interplay of parts and the sense of collaboration between soloists. All were on display in Saturday’s Two-Piano Gala, part of the London Piano Festival at... Read more... |
Gabriela Montero, Kings Place review - improvising to a Chaplin classic is the icing on a zesty cakeSaturday, 09 October 2021
As the Statue of Liberty appears in Charlie Chaplin’s The Immigrant, our improvising pianist proclaims “The Star-Spangled Banner”, only for it to slide dangerously. The passengers on the ship taking them to a new life are brutally cordoned by the... Read more... |
Iestyn Davies, Aurora Orchestra, Collon, Kings Place review - Elizabethans and extraterrestrialsMonday, 27 September 2021
Music in London has faced down plagues, puritans, philistines and planners over the four centuries spanned by the Aurora Orchestra’s season-opener at Kings Place on Saturday. This concert in the venue’s “London Unwrapped” strand filled its main hall... Read more... |
London Bulgarian Choir, Kings Place review - dark Slavic tales in waves of soundTuesday, 25 May 2021
So, blinking, after too much isolation, into a spring evening for a first live indoor gig for over a year was always going to be exciting, if just for novelty value. But for a gentle breaking-in to live music, the London Bulgarian Choir was an... Read more... |
Urioste, Aurora Orchestra, Kings Place online review - superb musicianship in compelling close-upSaturday, 27 February 2021
The clever programming of the “Unwrapped” series has been transformational for the reputation of Kings Place. Ever since the Bach series in 2013 these year-long sequences of concerts and other events have succeeded in silencing the crustier... Read more... |
Osborne, Aurora Orchestra, Kings Place review – live music that lives and breathesSunday, 13 December 2020
Like a hokey-cokey, we’re back to live music in London – but for how long? I overheard another audience member explaining it was her third time at Kings Place this week, as people cram in as many concerts as possible before a feared return to... Read more... |
Kanneh-Mason Trio/Cassadó Ensemble, Kings Place review - the fewer the players, the greater the musicSaturday, 12 December 2020
For the performers and the venue there can be nothing but praise. To be back in Kings Place’s Hall One after so long was to realise afresh that no other London venue gives such air to soaring strings – and these ones truly did soar and gleam. For... Read more... |
